Saturday, August 25, 2012

Sometime back in March, we were reaching a point where we just didn't know what to do next. Time till Bob's graduation was drawing near, and we still had not made a decision about what life direction we were going to go We had options, but none really were sitting well with us.

Then Bob got an email. "Maybe come to Louisiana" it said. "You could fill a need here." He forwarded it to me. I read the first line or two at work, sitting alone, and closed it out fast, not daring to read the rest because I knew. I knew that was where we were going to go. We had prayed the night before, again, pleading with God to show us what to do, because we were so tired of being in limbo.

We went and visited. It fit. We said yes. I cried a lot. First for the reality of leaving the family that adopted me, who gave me their name. I had already left my first family and now I had to do it over again. Secondly, I cried for the reality of not being an international missionary. Yes, yes, I know all about "being a missionary where you are" and all that stuff. But I wanted to go to a land I did not know, to travel, eat strange things, learn a language, to walk with those in true poverty, and work with people who do not think like me. Now that did not seem like it was to be.

(side-note: I will likely have a whole other blog post about life in Louisiana and how maybe this is a country all its own, but that will have to come later.)

But comfort in God's will prevailed and the tears dried, though they resurface occasionally. We put our little house on the market. We planned another trip back to find a new place to live and get a job for me.

I truly job-searched for the first time in my life. I marketed myself to where there was no job posting. I came to the conclusion that nurse practitioners barely existed in Louisiana or the market was saturated. I learned later I was right; I was just one of many NPs. And it's all about who you know and I didn't know anybody.

We came down for our second visit without much of an agenda, which is not what we wanted. I had been unable to find a job. We looked at a bunch of rentals, and saw too many cockroaches for our liking. Someone mentioned maybe teaching nursing, which I had not thought about. I found a job to apply to at a university, but couldn't get the fax machine to work for a few days. Finally, I got it sent off. We found a place to rent we liked, but it was pretty much already taken unless we could rent it that day. We still hadn't sold our house.

The day came for us to leave. We were feeling quite guilty at this point, because the church had paid for our trip down there and we had not accomplished much. On the way to the airport, we starting thinking it probably would be better just to start paying on the rental house to reserve it. We would say "Yes" to coming though we didn't know how we would with a house to sell. The landlady was pleased we wanted it and picked us over another applicant. We sent a deposit check back with our ride to the airport. Whew, we had a place to live.

Earlier that morning, I had received a call from the university. They liked my resume. We talked in the airport while I was waiting for my plane. I didn't know much about the job at that point, but they seemed to be offering it to me if I wanted it. We set up a video interview for later.

We got on the plane. We started down the runway, but then we stopped. The pilot came on, saying there's weather in Houston, folks. He let us turn on cell phones on while we waited for clearance to take off. A few minutes later, my phone rang, and it was our realtor, saying our house had sold.

Whoa. In a matter of hours, we found a place to live, I seemed to have a job offer, and we sold our house. Praise the Lord! It was as if He was saying, "Come on, take a step in trust, and I will take care of the rest."

Our flight got cancelled completely, and we got to stay another night, to come home to celebrate with our new church family.

We packed up our house, I quit my job, and those that do not believe thought we were crazy. But here we are, learning our way around, picking up a few new words and eating a few strange things. We feel the Lord has led us here, though we do not know His full purposes for us. But for now, this will be our mission field.